Alien3 had a difficult production, with a confused pre-production period during which multiple screenwriters and directors became involved in the project, while shooting eventually started at Pinewood Studios without a finished script. David Fincher was brought into the project very late in its development, after a proposed version written and directed by Vincent Ward fell through. Fincher had little time to prepare, and the experience making the film proved agonizing for him, as he had to endure incessant creative interference from the studio. The film was Fincher's debut in big budget film making, and at the relatively young age of 27 he had to shoot the film without having a finalized script. Additionally, Fincher was under pressure to create a film worthy of the revered Alien movies that had gone before him, directed by Ridley Scott and James Cameron.[1] Upon completion, the studio dismantled and reworked the film without Fincher's consent, and even released a misleading teaser trailer that suggested it would take place on Earth.

The film was released to mixed reviews, and was generally regarded as inferior to the two installments that preceded it. It under-performed financially at the United States box office, although it went on to earn over $100 million outside of North America and was considered a financial success; some have since expressed the opinion that European audiences in particular were more receptive to the film's bleak, nihilistic tone, which Americans found off-putting.[1][2] In the years since its release, opinion on the film has improved noticeably, particularly with regards to the extended Assembly Cut released in 2003, and it has gone on to gain a strong cult following. It was followed by Alien Resurrection (1997) and the spin-off Aliens: Colonial Marines DLC Stasis Interrupted (2013).

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Following the events on LV-426, the Colonial Marine ship USS Sulaco experiences an onboard fire and ejects Ellen Ripley, Newt, Corporal Hicks and the damaged androidBishop, who are all in cryonic stasis, in an escape pod. During the launch, the ship's medical scans of the crew's cryotubes show an AlienFacehugger attached to one of the crewmembers. The pod crashes on Fiorina "Fury" 161, a foundry facility and penal colony inhabited by all-male inmates with "double-Y" chromosome patterns. After some inmates recover the pod and its passengers, an Alien Facehugger is seen approaching the prison dog. Ripley is taken in and awakened by Clemens, the prison doctor, and is told she is the only survivor of the crash. Many of the ex-inmates have embraced an apocalyptic, millenarian religion which forbids sexual relations, and Ripley is warned by the prison warden, Superintendent Andrews, that her presence among them may have extremely disruptive effects.

Ripley begins to suspect an Alien may have played a part in her arrival on Fiorina 161 and requests that Clemens perform an autopsy on Newt, but conceals the true nature of her concerns from him. Despite protests from the warden and his assistant, Aaron, the autopsy is conducted and Ripley's fears that Newt may be carrying an Alien embryo in her body turn out to be unfounded. Clemens proclaims she simply died in the crash. Meanwhile, Ripley's casual mingling with the prisoners begins to frustrate the warden and agitate the inmates.

A funeral is performed for Newt and Hicks in which their bodies are cremated in the facility's furnace. Meanwhile, the prison dog enters convulsions, and an Alien bursts from its body. The Alien soon begins a killing spree, slaying several members and reducing an outcast prisoner Golic to a mentally deranged state. To get answers, Ripley recovers and reactivates the damaged android Bishop, who confirms that there was an Alien lifeform on the Sulaco and that it came with them to Fiorina in the escape pod. She informs Andrews of her previous encounters with the Aliens and suggests everyone work together to hunt it down and kill it. Andrews rejects her story, blaming the deaths instead on the unrest amongst the inmates, and explains that the facility has no weapons. He also reveals that a rescue ship has been sent for Ripley by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

Back in the prison infirmary, Clemens is killed by the Alien in front of Ripley, which then approaches Ripley but mysteriously spares her. She runs to the mess hall to warn the others, only to see the Alien take Andrews. Ripley rallies the inmates and proposes they pour highly flammable toxic waste, which is stored at the facility, into the ventilation system and ignite it to flush out the creature. The prisoners reluctantly agree to the plan, but the mixture is ignited prematurely by the creature's intervention, resulting in the deaths of many of the prisoners. Suffering from pain in her chest and fearing internal injuries, Ripley scans herself with the medical equipment on board the Sulaco's escape pod and discovers the embryo of an Alien Queen growing inside her. She also discovers that Weyland-Yutani intend to capture the Queen embryo and the adult Alien, hoping to use them as biological weapons. Deducing that the mature Alien will not kill her because of the embryo she carries, Ripley begs Dillon, the religious leader of the inmates, to kill her, who agrees to do so only if she helps the inmates kill the adult creature first. They form a plan to lure it into the foundry's lead works facility using themselves as bait, where it can be drowned in molten lead. The bait-and-chase style plan results in the death of Dillon and all the remaining prisoners except Morse, who pours the lead. The Alien, covered in molten metal, escapes the mold and is killed by Ripley when she turns on fire sprinklers and sprays the beast with water, causing its exoskeleton to cool rapidly and shatter via thermal shock.

While Ripley battles the Alien, the Weyland-Yutani team arrives and is met by Aaron. They go to the lead works and the team's unnamed leader, who looks identical to the Bishop android, introduces himself to Ripley and claims to be the android's creator, sent to show Ripley a familiar face. He tries to persuade Ripley to undergo surgery to remove the Queen embryo, which he claims will be destroyed. Ripley refuses and steps back onto a mobile platform, which Morse positions over the furnace. The company soldiers shoot Morse in the leg, while Aaron bludgeons the team's leader over the head with a large wrench, believing him to be an android. The soldiers shoot Aaron dead, while their leader reveals his true intentions — to recover the Alien specimen inside Ripley. Ripley defies them by throwing herself into the gigantic furnace, just as the Alien Queen erupts from her chest. As she dies, Ripley grabs the creature and holds it to her as she falls into the fire.

Following the failure of Weyland-Yutani's mission and the death of all but one of the prison's inhabitants, the facility is closed down and the sole surviving inmate, Morse, is led away. On board the Sulaco's escape pod, Ripley's closing distress call from the original Alien plays one final time.

After the huge success of Aliens, Brandywine Productions were soon approached by 20th Century Fox to create another sequel in the Alien franchise. While producers David Giler and Walter Hill were initially unenthusiastic, they began developing ideas. Early concepts included the Xenomorphs invading Earth, where they would fuse into a giant creature that destroys New York City;[3] the idea of a massive gestalt Xenomorph entity later resurfaced in one of the scripts written for the third film, by Eric Red. Another early idea was to follow Ripley and Newt as they hunted an especially mobile Xenomorph creature in a Blade Runner-like metropolis.[3]

Eventually, Giler and Hill settled on the idea of a concluding entry in the form of two movies that would provide a definitive end to the saga.[3] The story was to revolve around "the underhanded Weyland-Yutani Corporation facing off with a militarily aggressive culture of humans whose rigid socialist ideology has caused them to separate from Earth's society".[4]Sigourney Weaver would only make a cameo appearance in the third film, with the lead role going to Michael Biehn's Corporal Hicks from Aliens. Alien 4 would see the return of Ripley "in an epic battle with Alien Warriors mass produced by the expatriated Earthlings".[4] Weaver in particular liked the Cold War metaphor and agreed to the smaller role.

"I felt that Ripley was going to become a burden to the story. There are only so many aspects to that character you can do."

―Sigourney Weaver on her reduced role

Weaver also agreed to being removed because she did not like the changes the studio made to Aliens to reduce its run time, which included the removal of scenes regarding Ripley's daughter that she considered crucial to her character's development[5] (these scenes were later reinstated in the extended Special Edition).

Although 20th Century Fox was skeptical about the idea, they agreed to finance the development of the story, but asked that Hill and Giler attempt to get Ridley Scott to direct Alien 3. They also asked that the two films be shot back to back to lessen the production costs. However this proved to be difficult as Scott, though interested, was busy working on three films at the time. Horror director Clive Barker was also approached to write and direct the film, but he turned the project down as he found the Alien "uninteresting".[6] In September 1987, Giler and Hill approached cyberpunk author William Gibson to write the script for the third film. Gibson, who was influenced by Alien, agreed.[4] He initially wished to pursue the Blade Runner-type story, but was told by producers such an ambitious film would be prohibitively expensive.[3]

Gibson turned in the first script treatment for a third Alien film in 1987.[3] At the time of his involvement, Sigourney Weaver "seemed doggedly unwilling to participate" in any potential sequel and as a result Ripley was largely written out of the story. Instead, the main narrative focus became Hicks and Bishop. Gibson's effort is arguably the most well-known of the unproduced Alien3 scripts, as it has been available online for many years, although the version on the internet is, according to Gibson, "about thirty pages shorter than the version I turned in. It became the first of some thirty drafts, by a great many screenwriters, and none of mine was used (except for the idea, perhaps, of a bar-code tattoo)."[7]

The story is set aboard a large space station called Anchorpoint, where Weyland-Yutani begins experimentation on Xenomorph material recovered from Bishop's remains aboard the Sulaco. The script also features a distinct Cold War element, with the rival "Union of Progressive Peoples" (analogous to the Soviet Union) running their own Xenomorph experiments after boarding the Sulaco before its arrival at Anchorpoint and recovering genetic material of their own. Eventually both Anchorpoint and the U.P.P space station are overrun by Xenomorphs and Hicks and Bishop must team up with the survivors to destroy the creatures.

The script ends with a cliffhanger for Alien 4 in which Xenomoprh genetic material is headed for Earth aboard the Sulaco. Bishop suggests to Hicks that humans are united against a common enemy and they must track the Xenomorphs to their source and destroy them. The screenplay is very action oriented, containing 8 Marine vs. Alien battle scenes, including a major confrontation set on the exterior hull of the space station; by comparison, James Cameron's script for Aliens contained only 2 Marine vs. Alien battles. A second draft by Gibson removed most of this action and instead presented a story closer to the claustrophobic horror of Alien. Gibson's scripts also feature an extended cast with many new characters. Since the first draft's release online, it has attained a considerable following on the internet. However, at the time, the producers, while liking certain aspects of the script, were unhappy with the screenplay overall. Gibson was asked to make rewrites with their newly hired director, Renny Harlin, but declined, citing various other commitments and "foot dragging on the producers' part."[4]

The next draft of Alien3 was written in 1989 by Eric Red, writer of the cult horror films The Hitcher (1986) and Near Dark (1987).[8] Red's script had little to do with the previous entries in the series; all of the survivors from Aliens fall victim to the Xenomorphs before the story starts, the only direct link to the preceding films being a bloodied nametag bearing the name "Ripley" that is found aboard the Sulaco in the opening scene.

The script is set aboard a space station that houses an entire small-town USA settlement, including open wheat fields, farms and a small town, all housed under a giant dome. Beneath the town, the rest of the station consists mostly of a high-tech research facility, where military scientists are secretly breeding and studying the Xenomorphs. The creatures soon escape and wreak havoc, and with most of the military and science personnel killed in the initial outbreak it is left to the townsfolk to fight off the creatures. At the end of the story, the station itself becomes "infected" by the Xenomorphs and turns into a giant biomechanical Xenomorph creature.

Whereas several of the unproduced Alien3 scripts (specifically Gibson's and Vincent Ward's) have received substantial praise in recent years, Red's effort has something of an infamous reputation for it's poor quality.[8] Indeed, after being shown Red's screenplay, then-director Renny Harlin walked out on the project, and Red was fired shortly afterwards. Red himself later disowned the widely circulated version of the script, claiming, "The piece of junk was a product of a few weeks of intense, hysterical story conferences with the studio to rush to get the picture into production and it turned out completely awful..."[8] It was at this point that Giler and Hill abandoned their plans to produce two Alien sequels, and focussed on making a single film.

Writer (and future director) David Twohy was next to work on the project. His version is even further removed from the preceding films than Red's script — the only reference to the first two movies being an image of Ripley seen on a computer monitor half-way through, with the word "DECEASED" written beneath it — although he allegedly also turned in an alternate draft that featured the Ripley character more prominently.[9]

Twohy's story is set on a prison space station in Earth orbit called Moloch Island, where inmates act as manual labor in a giant refinery that smelts ore mined in space. The prison is also secretly being used by Weyland-Yutani to breed and run illegal experiments on the Xenomorphs, many of which involve the use of convicts as live bait. To keep the experiments secret from the prison population, only death row inmates are used, their executions faked in a gas chamber before they are revived and used in the tests. Examples include breach testing, where a Xenomorph is videotaped as it searches for — and finds — the weakest part of a structure with human bait inside, breaks through and attacks the victim. An accident at the station frees the Xenomorphs, and the surviving prisoners and staff must team up to try and escape.

Vincent Ward was hired to direct the film, although he promptly told the studio he was not interested in filming Twohy's script and instead wanted to pursue his own idea for a third movie. Ward was given the go-ahead to develop this idea, even though the studio still had Twohy performing rewrites of his own script, telling him that Ward's screenplay was in fact for a fourth movie in the franchise.[9] When Twohy learned of Fox's duplicity, he quit and his draft was put aside.

The 1990 story for Alien III by Ward and John Fasano has Ripley's escape pod crash landing on a monastery-like space station, which is archaic in design and largely constructed from wood.[10] This unusual satellite, called Arceon (not to be confused with Acheron), is a place of refuge for a group of all-male Luddite-like monks, who have rejected modern technology.

The story begins with one of the monks witnessing a "star in the East" (in fact Ripley's escape pod approaching the station), which his brothers at first believe to be a good sign. However, upon the arrival of Ripley, and with increasing suggestions of Xenomorph presence, the monks instead come to view the omen as the herald of some sort of divine trial for their misdemeanors, for which they are being punished by the creature that haunts them. By having a woman in their monastery, the monks wonder if their trial is partially caused by sexual temptation, as Ripley is the only woman to be amongst the community in many years. To avoid this temptation and (hopefully) the much grimmer reality of what she has brought with her, the monks lock Ripley into a dungeon in the lower levels of the space station and ignore her advice on the true nature of the beast. However, one of the monks soon comes to believe Ripley and frees her, and together they attempt to escape Arceon.

Ward's is by far the most famous of the unproduced screenplays for Alien3 and has received significant praise for its setting in particular. Former London Times journalist David Hughes included Ward's version of Alien III amongst "the greatest sci-fi movies never made" in his book of the same title.[11] A significant portion of the Alien3 making-of documentary, Wreckage and Rage, was dedicated to Ward's screenplay. The project progressed to the point where several sets to be used in the film were designed, although little was actually built.[12] However — contrary to the promise of full creative control they had originally made the director — 20th Century Fox began attempting to curtail Ward's ideas, hiring writers Greg Pruss and Larry Ferguson to rewrite his script.[9] Ward quit the production as a result.[10] His replacement, David Fincher, had little interest in developing Ward's script, although the characters and plot it contained were ultimately adapted into the finished film.

Short on time before filming was due to commence, producers Walter Hill and David Giler took control of the screenplay themselves, melding aspects of the Ward script with Twohy's earlier prison-set screenplay to create the basis of the final film. Even so, the script underwent numerous late revisions even as filming was taking place. David Fincher also did further work on the screenplay with author Rex Pickett, the latter of whom revised most of the work done by the previous authors despite eventually being fired, allegedly for siding with Fincher over Hill and Giler on where the script should be going.[13] With the script situation becoming increasingly chaotic, Hill and Giler wrote the final draft of the screenplay. By the time the film was released, Fox had spent $13 million on the writing of the film, with no less than ten different writers contributing to the project.[14]

Like Aliens before it, Alien3 was primarily shot at Pinewood Studios, near London, starting in January 14, 1991, without even a finished script and having spent $7 million.[5] The production was infamously fraught, with Fincher experiencing extensive interference from the studio and frequently clashing with 20th Century Fox over where the film should be going. Several actors on set observed that Fox appeared to have hired Fincher on the assumption that he was "a pop video promo director that they could push around", and when this ultimately proved not to be the case, the atmosphere became increasingly hostile.[15] To add to these problems, Fincher had to deal with a script that continued to change even as filming was taking place, as well as pressure to utilize expensive sets that had been constructed for earlier iterations of the story.[1]

Eventually, overruns at Pinewood caused filming to be shut down, and the production moved to Fox Studios in Los Angeles, California.[1] The filming schedule was so chaotic that the ending scene was still being edited just three weeks before the movie was due to be released in the United States.[16]

The Xenomorph in the film was portrayed by both Woodruff, Jr. in a suit and a rod puppet filmed against bluescreen and optically composited into the live-action footage. Contrary to popular belief, wide shots of the quadrupedal Alien were not created using CGI. However, a small number of shots in the film do contain CGI elements, most notably the cracking Xenomorph head before the creature explodes. Other CGI elements include shadows cast by the (rod puppet) Xeneomorph, and airborne debris in outdoor scenes.[18] For the first time, certain shots were filmed from the Alien's point of view, and a fisheye lens was used to illustrate this.

A mechanical Xenomorph head was also used for close-ups of the creature.[18] The suit worn by Woodruff, Jr. adapted the design used in Aliens so that he could walk on all fours.[17] Woodruff's head was contained in the neck of the suit, because the head was filled with the animatronics needed to move the mouth and inner jaw.[19]

Director David Fincher suggested that a Whippet (a breed of small dog) be dressed in a Xenomorph costume for on-set coverage of the quadrupedal creature, but the visual effects team was dissatisfied with the comical result and the idea was dropped in favor of the rod puppet.[18]

Alien3 was released in the United States on May 22, 1992. The film debuted at number two of the box office, behind Lethal Weapon 3, with a Memorial Day weekend gross of $23.1 million. It screened in 2,227 theaters, for an average gross of $8,733 per theater.[20] The film was considered a flop in North America with a total of $55.4 million, although it did far better elsewhere, particularly in Europe, grossing a total of $104.3 million internationally[21] for a total of $159.7 million. As producer David Giler later said, "It ended up doing as well as the rest of [the Alien films], but it did it in different places."[14] It is the second highest earning Alien film, excluding the effect of inflation, and had the 28th highest domestic gross in 1992.[22]

In its initial release, the film recieved mixed reviews from critics, generally being unfavorably compared to the preceding two films in the franchise.[23][24] A number of cast and crew associated with the series, including actor Michael Biehn, previous director James Cameron and novelist Alan Dean Foster, expressed their frustration and disappointment with the film's story. Cameron, in particular, regarded the decision to kill off the characters of Bishop, Newt, and Hicks "a slap in the face" to him and to fans of the previous film. Biehn, upon learning of Corporal Hicks' demise, demanded and received almost as much money for the use of his photograph in one scene as he had been paid for his role in the entire film Aliens.[1] Foster, the writer of the novelizations of the first three Alien films, called the death of Newt and Hicks "an obscenity".

However, several members of Alien3's cast and crew, including actors Charles Dance and Ralph Brown, as well as would-be director Vincent Ward, have defended the movie and in particular its director, suggesting that many of the film's problems were caused by the excessive studio interference, Fox's over-reliance on dubious test screenings and the resulting post-production alterations that were made.[15] According to Dance, the film was "a fantastic piece of work. And then the committee put their fingers in".[15] Ward later stated, "I sort of took my hat off to David Fincher because I thought, 'You know what? You've entered something at a ridiculous stage and that you've made anything even faintly coherent, you know, well done.'"[15]

"It still could've all worked had Fox held their nerve and not screened it to a bunch of brain-dead teenagers in Southern California, and then actually followed their comments of, 'There's too many bald English guys in it!' and all this kind of nonsense."

In recent years, Alien3 has found a more positive reception among critics and Alien fans. While still generally regarded as inferior to the first two films in the series, it has built up a reputation as a cult classic among certain audiences. The extended Assembly Cut, first released as part of the Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set in 2003, has received highly positive reviews, and has a rating of 86% — significantly higher than the theatrical version of the film — on Rotten Tomatoes.[25]

Alien3 was released as part of The Alien Legacy DVD and VHS box sets in 1999, along with Alien and Aliens.

On December 2, 2003, Aliens was released as part of the Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set, which featured both the theatrical release and a new alternate cut of each of the four films in the series, along with a host of bonus features. The Assembly Cut of the film was specially created for the set, although notably Fincher declined to be involved in its creation, being the only director from the series to so refuse.[27] The alternate cut was instead put together by set producer Charles de Lauzirika. Other newly created material in the Quadrilogy release included a commentary track featuring the film's actors and production staff, and a documentary entitled Wreckage and Rage: The Making of 'Alien 3'. Despite giving the Quadrilogy set high marks, TheDigitalBits.com directed criticism at the Alien3 bonus disc, pointing out that the studio had censored the documentary to delete a handful of behind-the-scenes clips in which Fincher openly expresses his anger and frustration with their interferance.[28]

In 2010 both the theatrical version and Assembly Cut of Alien3 were released on Blu-ray Disc as part of the Alien Anthology set, which also included a restored version of Wreckage and Rage documentary that included all of the previously censored footage.

The official licensed video game of the film was developed by Probe Entertainment, and released for multiple formats by Acclaim and Virgin Interactive, including Amiga, Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive/Genesis and Sega Master System. Rather than being a faithful adaptation of the film, it took the form of a basic platform action game where the player controlled Ripley using the weapons from the film Aliens in a green-dark ambient environment. The following year, a Game Boy version was released, developed by Bits Studios, although it differed from the console game, being a top-down adventure game. A third game based on the film, again a side-scrolling action game, was also released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. SEGA developed an arcade shooter loosely based on the film's events, titled Alien3: The Gun.

Academics analyzing the role of the Ripley character remark on the symbolism of the Sulaco's cryo chamber. Ripley is compared with an incorrupt Catholic saint preserved in a glass coffin (akin to Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, both in her lying in state in the cryotube as well as her incorrupt body, which has twice survived being almost "impregnated" by the Alien). Accompanied by the Agnus Dei of the Ordinary Mass playing in the background of the opening scene, these scholars argue that the Sulaco is transformed "into a holy site where the iconic bodies of a fetishistic religion lie in state," setting the scene for a lone Facehugger attacking its victim (corrupting it) and also causing the emergency system to eject the cryotubes into space and to plunge to Fiorina "Fury" 161 (representing the Fall of Man).[30]

The film was nicknamed "Skinheads in Space" by its British crew, due to its predominantly bald cast.[31]

The decision to kill Ripley was partly influenced by Sigourney Weaver, who wanted to move away from the series by giving the character a definitive end.[32] Of course, she later relented and agreed to star in Alien Resurrection.

After the film's release, Weaver commented on her apparent exit from the franchise, joking that "they'd probably find a way to resurrect Ripley using the DNA in her fingernails".[33] In doing so, she'd unintentionally foreshadowed almost exactly what would happen five years later in Alien Resurrection.

Several of the sound effects in the movie incorporate incredibly low tones, and for early screenings specialized, very large bass speakers were installed in theatres to accentuate these sounds. However, the speakers were removed when the low rumblings actually caused vibrations that forced some elderly viewers to leave for the bathroom during the film.[1]

Many of the cast members playing the prisoners in the film enjoyed intimidating people they would meet when off set with their shaven heads.[34]

Two of the actors in the movie, Brian Glover (Andrews) and Paul McGann (Golic), featured in the long-running British sci-fi series Doctor Who. Glover played Griffiths in the 1985 serial Attack of the Cybermen, while McGann played the title character in a 1996 TV movie.

The 2013 video game spin-off Aliens: Colonial Marines/Stasis Interrupted would later reveal that Dwayne Hicks was not actually killed on Fiorina 161, and that the body that was cremated was a civilian named Turk, who was accidentally trapped inside Hicks' cryotube by Weyland-Yutani PMCs before the EEV separated from the Sulaco. Furthermore, it was revealed that Hicks actually arrived on the planet in time to witness Ripley's death, but too late to prevent it.

Alien3 is the only film in the Alien franchise not to prominently include some kind of flamethrower, although the prisoners still use fire as a weapon against the Xenomorph.

Alien3 is also the only film out of the entire Alien, Predator and Alien vs. Predator franchise where a pistol-like weapon doesn't appear (although in the theatrical version of Alien, the laser pistols carried by the crew are never clearly shown).